When Anxiety Comes Out of Nowhere: What Your Body Might Be Trying to Tell You - Ep 27

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today we're having a raw conversation about anxiety. And we thought right now would be a fitting time to have the conversation since Ken is struggling with it right now. Anxiety can be confusing because sometimes it doesn't arrive with a reason. It just shows up and suddenly you're questioning why your body feels so unsettled. And more than 40 million Americans, or about 19 to 21% of the adult U.S. population, suffer from a diagnosed anxiety disorder each year.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

I've been experiencing anxiety since the end of June. We planned this trip to Connecticut to visit family. In previous episode, we talked about that I got laid off in February, and we've been working on our online business and basically hustling every single day. Right when the Uber showed up at our front door, we put in everything with their suitcases in the car.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Well, I would like to preface this first before you get into what happened. I would like to preface this with you didn't know what you were experiencing. You weren't familiar with the symptoms of anxiety at that time. So you didn't know what was going on.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

Yeah, I didn't know what was going on.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah. I would just like to paint the full picture for the rest of the Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

So the Ubers outside, we're packing our we're loading our suitcases in. And then all of a sudden, I sat for the first time actually, I sat in the front seat, which I we rarely take Ubers here in Arizona for some reason. And then all of a sudden I feel like I couldn't breathe. We're we're driving and then all of a sudden like there's not enough air for me to breathe in the car. Like the seatbelt was choking me, my own belt was choking me. I was wearing a granted it was somewhere here in Arizona, which is pretty hot, but I decided to wear pants and I got this new Converse. When I was putting them on, I I thought it's kinda pretty hot to wear Converse. You know, but I said, okay, whatever, I'm going to Connecticut and I'm gonna be in the airport, which is not gonna be hot. But nope, I just felt like I couldn't breathe in the car. Not even a mile from our house. I told the lady, the driver, to stop the car because I couldn't breathe.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Pull over.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Yeah, I said, hey, pull over, pull over here, I I can breathe. So she pulled over, I got out of the car. It's like it was like a hundred, a hundred and five degrees at 11 or 12 p.m. Around 11 a.m. And getting out of the car it would make it worse because it's hotter, you know. But for some reason I feel like I needed to escape. You know, I needed to kind of uh I needed to breathe, you know. So my first reaction was stop the car. I cannot breathe in this car. Maybe the AC wasn't cooling enough, or I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

No, the AC was fine.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

Yeah, so I got out of the car, we didn't have any water with us because we were just rushing to get in the airport. And I took my shoes off.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

On the side of the road.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

On the side of the road. I was trying to like comprehend what the heck was happening. All I thought was just I'm I'm super hot. Yeah. You know? And so I I we swapped seats.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Well, first we were apologizing profusely to the Uber driver because we were like embarrassed, and I'm like looking at him and I'm looking at my daughter, and we're like, what the hell is going on?

SPEAKER_03 3:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

And then he's asking me if I have you were asking me if I have water, and I'm like, I don't have water.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

My mouth felt so dry, like I had no saliva. You know, so unbelievably dry. And I was like, I I can't breathe. I I'm so thirsty.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

And then the Uber driver was like offering you her water. Yeah, and I took it. We took it when we're really particular about whose water we drink. We don't even like sharing water with our kids because they backwash and everything else.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Yeah, she goes like, Oh, do you wanna do you want from my do you wanna drink it from my cup? Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm clean, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

And I'm like, She was so sweet and understanding, and she was like, Oh, I'm clean. Yeah, you can you can have some. And I was like, Yeah, what the hell is going on?

SPEAKER_04 4:34

Yeah, I took the cover off from her cup and I drank it. I sat in the backseat with my I took my shoes off, and I was just basically trying to breathe, and and you know, my daughter was next to me. I was trying to like compose myself, but I I didn't understand what the heck was happening. Yeah. So I felt I started feeling better after the ACs kind of started cooling me off and you know taking some breaths. Yeah, taking some breath and kind of you know, taking it easy. And it was so weird, but in my head, I thought, yeah, I got overheated.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Right.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Got overheated with too many layers on me. Um this summer in Arizona, I was too hot.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I don't know, was I was rushing, trying to get all the Well we weren't late, but it's your typical rush get us to the airport, you know, it's never fun.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

Exactly. So we got there, we were in the airport, and I'm still feeling this weird, whatever is happening in me. Uneasy. I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of shaking and I'm like a little, you know, this is not me. It's like what's going on? Like I I couldn't understand what the heck was happening. So we're in the airport, uh going through security, all good. But then when we're about to board the airplane, and I still feel like I need, and I'm still scanning my own body to make sure that I have enough air. I'm getting enough air that is cool enough in the airport. So I'm a little nervous. So when we were about to board the airplane, right by the connector, how is that called?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

The jet bridge.

SPEAKER_04 6:09

Yeah, the jet bridge. I'm feeling it warm again, and my brain is just like, no, you're not gonna be able to breathe in there.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

You were in flight mode, like fight or flight, you were flight.

SPEAKER_04 6:22

So I got into a panic mode and I felt like I needed to go back to get water. And again, we didn't have water. Had the same feeling that I couldn't breathe.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

And now we're in this tiny little narrow, yeah, hacked jet bridge or jetway, whatever you call it. And there's a line of people in front of us and a line of people behind us. We already checked our tickets, we're in line. There's no going back. Like you can't leave now.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

Yeah, and then my mind is like, no, I'm not gonna, I can breathe again. And all I'm thinking is I have to compose myself because my wife and my daughters, they're here in front of me. You know, I wasn't even thinking about other people. The only thing that I was thinking was you and my daughter, because I don't want you to have that experience or that memory. What's wrong with my dad? What's wrong with my husband? They're gonna take me to, I don't know, to are they gonna call 911? I don't know. I'm trying to really compose myself. And then I finally did.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

No, you no, back off. You always like to skip this part of the story. You took off the backpack you were carrying. Oh, yeah. And you went, you turned around to walk out, and you dropped it by some random person.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

And I grabbed you, and I grabbed the bag, and the guy who was just that you put it next to was just looking at me, and I grabbed you, and I was like, No, you can't leave. And I pulled you back up to where our daughter was standing, and I grabbed the bag, I put it on, and I was just kind of rubbing your back and you know, telling you to breathe and take deep breaths and whatever, because I saw it kind of coming on and I was like, Oh shit, are we doing this again?

SPEAKER_04 7:59

Starting. Yeah, yeah. You called me down that we got in the airplane, and of course I was feeling so uneased, fighting this whatever overheating event that I just that just happened.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Right.

SPEAKER_04 8:13

And so we went on vacation. We were visiting family, going places, and all this and that. And then we spent I think two weeks, right, in Connecticut.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

And I think the day before our flight back to Arizona, I had like some sort of a panic attack or anxiety. We went to visit my mom.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Well, you were having it on and off for all two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

Did I? Yeah. I think so, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yes. You were having little episodes. Little episodes. You were really distant the whole two weeks, you were just not present, yeah. Non-existent. Like I always kept asking, like, this is scanning, scanning my own body.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

I didn't know what the heck.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

You didn't we didn't know that it was well. I said it that night. I remember when we were sitting at my dad's couch, just like, you know, checking in with them about how the flights went and blah, blah, blah. And I was telling them the story of what happened, and they were kind of like my dad and his girlfriend were kind of like, well, why? What was going on? And I was like, it's just anxiety. And I was like, no, it was it was anxiety. And it wasn't about like flying or anything like that, because that's that's not something that even resonates for you. You're not afraid of afraid of flying. It was, it's just like everything was catching up to you.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

And that's the confusing thing about anxiety is that it doesn't arrive with a reason. And that's why people have such a difficult time connecting the dots that, like, oh, this is anxiety, because what you're doing in that moment might not be anxiety-provoking. You could be like driving a car home on your way home from work or doing everyday things or out to dinner with your family, and all of a sudden, like, this wave of anxiety hits you, and you're just like, what the hell is that about?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

And like you said, like it's a matter of you're trying to scan your body and understand what is going on.

SPEAKER_04 10:14

Yeah. And then my senses got kind of amplified. So my body was scanning everything, you know? So I didn't know in Connecticut that I was going through anxiety. I was trying to understand what happened. Like you said. One day before our flight back to Arizona, we went to get dinner. I went to visit my mom. And then we just rushed the visit. We stayed there for like an hour. My sister wanted to kind of grill something with her boyfriend, and my mom and my sister kind of wanted us to hang out for a little longer. But then we also had plans to go get dinner with your dad. So the visit was very short. I visited my mom the last day. So we drove back to your dad's house to go to a restaurant. And then for some reason, driving, I felt like I just didn't spend enough time with my mom. And all these feelings came back. Oh like, you know, anxiety again. Like, oh, you know, what did I do? I should have just spent more time with my mom. The whole point that I, you know, me going there for two weeks just to gonna spend time with my family. And I felt like I didn't have enough time.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

I didn't spend enough time with them. So I'm at the restaurant, and here I am again at the table, like feeling like I needed to go run away.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

So I went to the parking lot a few times. I got in the car, out of the car, put the car on, the AC on. Like I called my mom to give him apologies, and I didn't know what to do. My mind was just rushing. My mind was just running, thinking all these crazy thoughts, like you have no control. I had some sort of guilt, you know, and that I didn't spend time with my mom, and I didn't, and I and I wasn't spending enough quality time with your with your dad and you know, with my daughter, and at the restaurant with you and all that. So, and then so we left the day after, anxiety in the airplane again. I was more controlled, but I was feeling again this.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Well, by then we were, I was like telling you like this is anxiety, and like this is you know, this is what it feels like. And you like prior to that, you had no idea.

SPEAKER_04 12:28

No, no idea. No idea what the hell was.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

You thought like you're gonna die and all these things.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

Yeah, because you don't know. My my heart was racing, I'm so hot, like my feet are sweat are sweating, my hands are sweating, my heartbeat is just going so fast, and I can rest. I'm like, what's the word? Restlessness? So again, that happened in June, and I'm trying to comprehend what's going on. I keep having episodes uh of anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

That was two and a half months ago. It's the mid-middle of September.

SPEAKER_04 13:04

Yeah. I'm still having them on and off. That was July. So I bought a course online, and I'm trying to understand how to fight this because I don't want to go on medication. Um we mentioned in previous episodes, we do a lot of meditation, we read books, uh, we eat healthy, we exercise now. Actually, after these episodes of anxiety, I'm exercising every single day in the morning, uh, which I think is helping. But I'm trying to do not label myself as a person with anxiety because for me it's so foreign that You don't want to embody it. I don't want to embody it. I don't it feels like it's it's still in my personality. That's not who I am. It is okay to be afraid, it's okay to be to have fear. It is okay to feel again worried and all that, but but that shouldn't just control your emotions that deeply that you feel like running away, you know, from a moving car or or feeling afraid of your own thoughts, because that's what I feel. Like I just get sometimes into this my brain goes into the negative, and it's just to the point that one day I was driving, I told you uh we were about to drop off my daughter, and then I was thinking, do we have enough trees in Arizona to produce enough oxygen? So it's just like this paranoia, right? Like your brain goes to thinking about all these crazy thoughts out of nowhere. Yeah. You know? But I've been working through it every day now to try to distract myself. I'm reading a lot. One of the funny things that happens to me also here in Arizona was that one day I got up in the morning and the anxiety was so bad. I was just basically walking in the room back and forth to the bathroom to back to my bed, maybe like 10, 20 times. And then when I got up in the morning, I open my cell phone, but I don't delete emails. So I have like 80,000 notifications, like emails, and other apps, you know, would have a counter on it. And that gave me a huge anxiety. I had to turn all that off. I have to turn off my notifications when I get an email. I have to back off from social media, no more. Facebook, Instagram, none of that. I couldn't even process any of that. Everything would give me anxiety. If my brain is just so susceptible to anything that will trigger me, you know, to have more to have anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah. Well, that's the thing is when you're going through these episodes, you know, a lot of people don't know what it is. And that's why a lot of people think that they're having a heart attack and they end up in the hospital.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

And then the hospital sends them home and they're just like, no, that this is just anxiety. Like everything's fine. Um, that actually happened to me at my job in Connecticut. Somebody there, one of the workers, we had to call the ambulance. This was like, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Um, so I don't remember the exact circumstances of what happened to her. But I remember we had to call the ambulance. I don't know if she collapsed or passed out. I can't remember. But it ended up being, you know, she thought she was having a heart attack. She was complaining about her heart or whatever, and that she couldn't breathe. And so the ambulance came and took her to the hospital to get checked out. Lo and behold, it wasn't just anxiety. She just didn't know it. And that actually happened to me when we were before we had our daughter.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

So this was, I don't know, like 15, maybe 2015.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah, like 10 years ago-ish, something like that. I was having all this trouble breathing. Like I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. And I remember sitting at my desk job, and every day I was like taking these deep breaths, and I like couldn't get the air in my lungs. And I was like panicking like all the time. Like, why can't I get freaking air in my lungs? And I just kept yawning to try to catch my breath. And I was yawning, yawning, yawning all day long. And this was going on for a while, like a long time. And then I finally went to the doctor, and there was a combination of things. I was on a medication that I shouldn't have been on for your thyroid. They had misdiagnosed me for years of my life for a very long time, decades, with a thyroid issue that um, and they had me on a drug for it, and that was causing tachycardia, which was causing, you know, my heart to race. And so they had me on heart monitors and monitoring all that, but that never resolved. I did resolve that issue, but it never resolved of the issue of me not feeling like I could not catch my breath.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

And so they sent me for like stress test. You know, they had me running on the treadmill and doing all these monitoring things and all this crap. And finally the guy said to me, he was like, I really think this is just anxiety. And I was like, no, I know what anxiety feels like. Believe me, you know, like I've struggled with depression anxiety my whole life. And he's like, I really think it's anxiety. And I was like dumbfounded that he even said that. I was like, what the fuck? How dare you suggest that to me? Like, I know what anxiety feels like. But I knew what panic attacks felt like.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

And these weren't necessarily panic attacks that I was having. It was just like general anxiety about, you know, nothing. I was at my desk working. There was nothing to trigger it, is what I'm getting at. Same as yours. There was nothing triggering it in that moment. We were going on vacation. You were fine. Like we were fine. The underlying stress of our life was still running in the background. Yes. Was the issue.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

Was the issue. Exactly. In my case, we said in the previous episode, uh, I lost my job in February. And so it's been what, eight months, seven months? So I've been working on the business, e-commerce business. We were um recording also. So working on our podcast, website, editing, you know, doing so many things. We saw me getting laid off as opportunities to continue moving forward with our business. But this worry, right, underneath and still, even though our sales are like 200% up versus the last year, uh, which is great, but still we're still grinding, you know, trying to make everything work. I remember setting up a deadline. If things don't really work out by September or so, I want to go get a job. So I put that huge amount of pressure on me. And I think when I was leaving that usually be going on vacation, I guess. I don't know. I'm trying to really understand why I went through that episode.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

It was just an accumulation of everything. I don't think it was only that, but of course that was like the biggest factor was the job, the the money stress, you know, finances.

SPEAKER_04 20:19

The finances, yeah. Am I gonna go back to work? I don't want to go back to work, you know. I want to work on the things I like to do. And I think that puts a huge amount of pressure on me is like the pressure is on all the time. Yeah, I cannot let it go. Because I work on the business every single day. I'm like business mode 24 hours, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

I think I went through like a lot of that too. But mine, my mental health issues present themselves more as yes, anxiety, of course, but depression. I get really bad depression when I get super stressed out because I internalize everything. And I think I went through like that when I when I had my job in Connecticut. We moved here. I was working remotely, and I knew that the company only had so long left because the company was closing its doors forever, and it ended up lasting about a year of me working remotely. But it was such a stressful time because the business was going under and I was in the finances and you know, answering all the vendors looking for money and it wasn't my first rodeo. I had been in a business where I've done that before, and it's awful. It is so stressful. And of course, I was there for 10 years, and all of a sudden, when they closed their doors, it was like that was it, you know. I'm not talking to these people anymore. It was this huge chunk of my life and whatever. So yeah, I had really bad anxiety at that time too. And I started seeking treatments and medications and different things to help with that. But it was more like the depression for me, is what gets me. But yeah, I was being treated for both. If it was bad.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Yeah, there's always something that triggers all this. And we as as humans, we are very strong, but the things they will get at some point.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Well, that's the thing with anxiety. It was a matter of you you push through these experiences, job loss, whatever it is, whatever that looks like. You push through these experiences, but you're holding on to that energy.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

And you're burying it deep down to keep going on the surface. And at some point, that trapped energy that you have pushed down, you think you get rid of it because you just move forward. But the truth is you're not getting rid of it. You are burying it and it will come out at some point. And that's what anxiety, at least in my experience, looks like for me, is that trapped energy comes out at some point and it's at this random point where you're like, but everything's good. Everything's fine. I'm, you know, just driving home from work or whatever. There's no problem here.

SPEAKER_04 23:04

Yeah. And for people that don't believe in the energies like energies, what do you mean energies? But we use a huge amount of energy and different types of energies when we interact with people. Like when I used to go to work when I was in a meeting, I'm bringing an energy with me. Yeah. Right. If the the it regardless of how the meeting was, if it was a good meeting or a bad meeting, you know, your energy just changes or mutates, you know what I mean, as you deliver the meeting or as you are present in the meeting. And if you're going through a lot of pressure at work, right, using all this energy every single day, and then one day you let go and your body's like, hey, what the heck am I gonna do with all this energy?

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yeah. What what what's what do we do with all this energy you trap down here? You're pushing down here.

SPEAKER_04 23:47

All these arguments that you did, or you all those years that you helped to build the company, you know, all the customers that you helped, or your co-workers, all that intention you put right in the universe, and all of a sudden your body, like, hey, wait a minute, now what? Yeah. And then there is now a conflict inside of you.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, it's trapped.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

That's trapped. I felt that because that's what I used to do. I used to interact with a lot of employees and customers and my coworkers every single day, and all of a sudden, like, poof, oh, that's gone. And your body's trying to, okay, what are we doing today? In the beginning, you feel like some sort of relief because again, you don't have the pressure, you feel like you're on vacation, and then uncertainty kicks in. Okay, what are you gonna do? You're gonna get a new job, or you're gonna continue, you know, staying home, or what are you gonna do? So your body and your mind goes through so many emotions, right? That at some point it could break, and it breaks like you know, like you said, like what like you mentioned the statistics and over 40 million people in in the United States.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Right. And, you know, I'm notorious. I used to be notorious before I started learning how to cope with and manage my anxiety. I would be notorious for when I would go on vacation, I would get sick immediately when I got on vacation every time because I buried my stress and anxiety so deep down, and I just kept going every day, showing up and burying it, burying it, burying it. And then when you're on vacation, you don't have to show up, you don't have to bury it. And all of a sudden you have this time to like take a breath.

unknown 25:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

And you're like, oh, I don't have a million tasks to do today. And your body's like, wait a minute. Oh no, I got one for you, you know. All this energy that you've been pushing down, now you're gonna deal with it. And it's like, boom, I would get sick every freaking vacation that I went on, always sick. Sore throat was notorious for me. That's the first thing that shows up, and I would just get a cold or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Yeah, your body breaks down.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 25:53

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

So if you don't deal with it now, you're gonna deal with it at some point eventually, regardless.

SPEAKER_04 26:00

And we get addicted to that, Kim, too.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Yes, all chemicals, addicted to the chemicals that it produces in your brain, the stress. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

You do. Yeah, you do, you do. And you know, there's a lot of people that they go in and including myself, you go on vacation and you're still checking your emails, your work emails. You still default to go check your emails. And some people, I was reading in the book that I'm reading. There's some people, the book is called Letting Go that you suggested came for me to read, which is really good.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Um really good or fantastic? Yeah. That's my favorite box.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

It's really, really good. Uh the guy said that yeah, there's tons of uh CEOs and people out there, not even CEOs, people that have normal jobs, they just have to feel like they have to escape, go to the bathroom, go to another room to go check their emails, even though they're on vacation.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

You know? Because your body is like you said, it's just it's like a it's like an addiction of those chemicals your body, your mind is used to. So you default to that automatically. So and what I've been doing to overcome the anxiety, which is such a really bad, bad uh, I don't know, feeling sensation uh emotions. I'm doing a lot of breathing technique. I bought a course online, it was really short. And the anxiety kicked in. He didn't know what it was. He's just he's walking you through how to overcome anxiety. He just basically said, Hey, let it run. Because it lasts around 90 seconds, you know, to hard start racing. It takes around 90 seconds, just let it run. And it feels awful when you're letting it run. When you're feeling it, you just let it go, let it go, let it let it, let it, let it run. And I can feel it in my brain, I can feel it in my in my chest, I can feel it in my whole body. And you just have to, you don't, you don't fight it. That's what I've been doing, and that's what the guy suggested, and it seems like it was working for me. The more you fight it, the more you you put a resistance on it. You're trapping it again. You're trapping it, so you have to let it go. When you if you feel like your heart is racing, let it race. Let it race and start breathing. Let it race and don't try, don't try to panic. And it's really hard. Don't try to panic because you're already like an I'm already panicking.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

You know, don't try to resist it. Don't try to resist it. You want to be present and sit in the feeling.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

So even for me to record this episode was giving me anxiety because I didn't even want to talk about it. If you didn't even want to talk about it, I'm trying to that that's not me. I'm okay this morning. I had anxiety again. I get up sometimes at four in the morning, my heart is racing. I can't even lay down on one side because I feel like my heart needs more room than my chest to kind of continue racing, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Another thing you don't want to talk about is is because you see it as a sign of weakness. And I know so many people struggle with that. They think it's a sign of weakness, and it's it's not. It's just a part of being human. And it's just how we are processing our thoughts and emotions, and we're processing them in an unhealthy manner by pushing them down and trying to get rid of them. We don't want to feel it, we don't like to feel uncomfortable, we don't want them. So we try to push it down and move on with your day. And it's such an unhealthy manner. Um, and the book that I have you reading, Letting Go by David Hawkins, he teaches you how to process the feelings and how to let them go instead of burying them deep down. Because the more you do that, the worse off you're making it for yourself, whether it's now or in the future, at some point, those feelings are going to come up and you do have to process them and they will come out in some way. And, you know, we talked a lot about in the over the last few months of whether or not like you should go to the doctor. And ultimately we decided no, because you don't want to go on medication. You've seen my experience with medications, and it's just, you know, not that we don't, not that we're saying don't use medications to treat or help treat anxiety. Of course, you need to do whatever you need to do, and that's between you and your doctor. But our personal choice was that, you know, it's not good for us because it's treating symptoms of anxiety. It is not treating the root cause of anxiety.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

And the root cause of anxiety needs to be treated in order to move past this. Otherwise, you're going to be treating the symptoms of it for the rest of your life with a medication that will never ultimately get rid of it. Yeah. So that's been our journey through this. I've obviously been on the journey a lot longer of, you know, treating my anxiety and depression in other ways other than medication.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

Yeah. But if someone is like feeling like, hey, I gotta go find, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Oh, yeah. I use plenty of them. I I've been on and off of them my whole life. Yeah. Now I know the I bought into the story that a pill could treat that and and would resolve my issue. I bought into that story my whole life. I didn't understand that the answers were within me and that I had to do the the inner work in order to heal myself. Yeah. And that's the journey I've obviously been on.

unknown 31:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:31

God forbid, and I knock a wood that if I have to go on medication, I know that that won't be the answer, but I I'll continue working on my inner issues so so I can let go of the pill and I can let go the issue. You know, because the pill, as you mentioned, can it's just gonna basically put a band-aid, put a band-aid on the on the issue, and and doesn't really correct anything. You have to work on the fears, and that's what I've been doing. I have way more things to to talk about when I get in the car, when I'm like I'm out in the shower. The other day I was feeling this like knot in my throat. I'm like, what's going on? Like, what the heck is this now? You know? I'm trying to understand. It's all anxiety, it's all stress.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

And like you said, you mentioned that came to me. Like, oh, I felt that in before. Like you feel like a frog or something in your throat. And it goes away, you know, after a while or so. And it's really, really, really bad. And I know a lot of people, and I feel bad for a lot of people that they're going through these things, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people go through even worse things that just anxiety, you know, panic attacks everywhere they go and they're just trapped at home and they don't know what to do. But for those that are going through as humongous, a huge anxiety, you have to start working on it slowly, start reading some books, you know, start doing a little a little step at a time. Because for me, the first after the the episode with anxiety, everywhere I went, I needed to go with a bottle of water with ice.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

We call it his baby bottle.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

Yeah. So I I couldn't even get out of the house without without water and ice. And I was always, again, scanning the places, people, if I have enough air for me to breathe. And I will basically reset my nerve system holding my coal and my my bottle that usually had ice in it because I wanted just to kind of reset my nerve system.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

And we went through a period where we didn't we thought the ice machine was not working properly, but no, it was just Ken using so much ice. So much ice. So basically I'm like it was pumping out, but it couldn't keep up with Ken.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

It is just crazy. And because again, just the fear of me being hot all the time. And granted, Arizona was super hot. It is super hot in summer, but you know, we're in indoors all day and the AC never stops running. So it's not just like, all right, you're outside, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

So some other like techniques that we've been implementing that I tried to help you and walk you through was we mentioned the breathing, like a lot of deep breaths. And the way we're working through anxiety is that when it comes up, we're sitting with the feelings instead of pushing them down. We're just sitting with them and letting them be and just noticing them.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

You don't have to notice them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

You don't have to like, oh no, nope, here it comes. No, no, no, no, no, no, not right now, not right now. Like, just let it be. Just let it take deep breaths through it.

SPEAKER_04 34:31

You know, I And it's really hard because I sometimes I'm like, I can't, I can't, I can't, I'm gonna break down, I can't. But you have to really let it run. Let it run the course and little by little. You know, of course you don't want to put your life in day life in danger, you know. If you have someone that can help you with that, it would be better, you know. But yeah, that's what I've been doing, and I never, never, ever thought that I would go through this. But here I am, going through some anxiety, and I know it's gonna be temporary. I know that this won't be my my final state, you know, because I you know I've been I'm going through a lot of stress, but I know deep down in me that everything is temporary. You know, nothing stays the same for a long period of time. You know, I know one year, two, three, four, five years, it seems like a long period of time, but it's not forever. So I know at some point for me, for a lot of people out there, things are gonna change at some point. They won't stay the same. So it's up to you to start making the changes right now if you're going through some, if you're going through bad anxiety or depression or whatever the case might be, pick up a good book, start, you know, you gotta start with little steps. Things are not gonna change just like that, you know. You just have to do a little bit a little bit of work and you're gonna see a little bit of progress, and then you're gonna probably feel like you're falling back to the same step one, but you have to continue going forward. And before you know it, you're gonna be better.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yeah. Another thing we implemented was when after you lost your job, and then all of a sudden summertime hit and our daughter was on school vacation. So then you're okay, well, I don't have a job, I don't have to get up to take my daughter to school, and so we're sleeping in, and then our schedule gets kind of off track, and then then you fall into kind of depress me. I get like depressed, like I feel bad about myself, like I'm not on a schedule, I'm not getting things accomplished as I want to. So a big thing for us at that when this all started was okay, I helped you to get back on a schedule. And I was like, here's what I implemented after I stopped working. I had to implement a new schedule to get myself up and on track right away, to set myself up for success at the beginning of the day. So we started a schedule. I said, let's get up. You know, it was summer. Well, at this point when we were we were back, she was back in school at this point. So we got up, we take her to school, we come home. I said, let's work out right away. Because you never wanted to work out in the morning. We were like, no, I'll just do it at night. But then night came and we're like dinner, homework, you know, dishes, relax, you know, or work or whatever else we had going on.

SPEAKER_04 37:11

It was it was really hard for me to work out in the morning because I don't like it. I feel like I just burning energies too early during the day, and I would rather save that energy to work on some other things. Yeah. And my body would feel weird, but then I had to, I had to, like, I'm gonna do it. Then you saw me sitting on the rug, like near the fan, the AZ was on, bottle of water or a cup of water with ice next to me, trying to work out while my head was just running. Yeah. I couldn't even meditate, I couldn't even hear music.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

I was just like completely I had to just kind of force you, and you know, that's was a benefit for you, I feel like, that I had all this experience with it. I had it, it was like a benefit for you, so I could force you to do it, even though you didn't want to, you were resisting, you did not want to get up and work out for for years. I would try it, and you were like, no, no, no, no, no. But I had gone through that, you know, the years before, like getting myself on a schedule, and I was going to a Pilates studio and just first thing in the morning getting it done, and then you know, I had a schedule.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

So I knew that that would benefit you to just get going. So we got you on that schedule work out, then we meditate, shower, eat, a variation of that, like something like that. I spend time like journaling or whatever, but as long as you're doing some sort of physical workout and a mental, you know, check-in, whatever that looks like for who's ever daily routine.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

The change is is actually in those things that you don't want to do.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

You know, you don't want to read the book. Well, the change is there. Part of the change. Well, you don't want to exercise. Yeah, part of the change is there. Well, I love to eat sugar, you know, or eat ice cream, whatever. Well, eat less either, eat at least half. Yeah. You know. So those things that you don't want to do on the other side of those things is partially the answer of the things that you're seeking.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Yeah, that's the change is in is in those steps that you're resisting.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

You're resistant. Yeah, you're resistant. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

And I can't stress enough for anybody that's struggling with anxiety, is that book Letting Go. David Hawking's Letting Go. Ken's usually a really fast reader. It's kind of a bigger book. I don't know, three or four hundred pages, something like that. You're usually a fast reader, but you've been strategically taking your time and really embodying and learning from it. And I highly suggest that for anybody. It is my number one at this moment, my number one favorite book that absolutely changed my life, how I view things. I've read it several times, like three or four times now, I think. It's just a tremendous amount of knowledge of how to improve your life, how to be more present, how to be healthier in your in your mind and controlling your thoughts and and everything. If you have someone that has experience with it or that you're comfortable with or whatever, that's they're like a good resource to help you get through it. And I know um you'll probably argue with me and not want to put this in, but like as far as trapped energy goes, if you have allow yourself to have a good cry and get out some of that trapped energy and just have somebody sit with you and just ugly cry and get out some of this crap that's just stuck there, I assure you that helps get things moving. And I know everybody wants to resist a good ugly cry, male or female, more so male. But it does help to get things moving and unstuck.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

What do you refer to an ugly cry? Like a cry, the loud cry with the lumbuggers?

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Exactly. The stringiness.

SPEAKER_04 41:15

Yeah. Hey, whatever it takes.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Whatever it takes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 41:22

All right, so I think that's it for today. And you know, for those who are struggling with anxiety, you know, you can do it. I am going through it and it sucks. And you have to be willing to put the work. Mm-hmm. And I know I'll be okay, and we know that you'll be okay. All right, so we'll see you the next time.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

All right, bye-bye.

SPEAKER_04 41:39

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

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